A towering figure in world literature, Dante wrote his great epic poem 'Commedia' in the early 14th century. The work gained universal acclaim and came to be known as 'La Divina Commedia', or 'The Divine Comedy'. Giuseppe Mazzotta brings Dante and his masterpiece to life in this exploration of the man, his cultural milieu and his unendingly fascinating works. Based on Mazzotta's highly popular Yale course, this book offers a critical reading of 'The Divine Comedy' and selected other works by Dante. Through an analysis of Dante's autobiographical Vita nuova, Mazzotta establishes the poetic and political circumstances of 'The Divine Comedy'. He situates the three sections of the poem - Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise - within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, and he explores the political, philosophical and theological topics with which Dante was particularly concerned.